Assessing the Evolution of Cryptocurrency: Demand Factors, Latent Value and Regulatory Developments

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the evolution of cryptocurrency including its demand factors, latent value propositions and regulatory developments. The cryptocurrency market has experienced unprecedented growth driven by improved ease of access, speculation, familiarity, media attention, network effects, mining activity, distrust of traditional banking, global instability hedging, and a demand effect from the initial coin offering (ICO) market. This had led to wide asset bubble speculation. The future of cryptocurrency is impossible to predict, and although it is unlikely that cryptocurrency will eliminate trusted intermediaries, and replace sovereign fiat altogether, it has numerous latent value propositions and long-term use cases including distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchain innovations (particularly in financial payments, settlements, clearing, supply chain, agriculture, and voting), identity and data protection mechanisms, crowd-funding, and decentralized business applications and services.There may also be benefits to a bubble including “long tail” successes, hype-financed research and development in DLT and blockchain infrastructure (that wouldn’t have otherwise received funding in a reticent market), and consumer familiarity benefits. The regulatory response to date has largely been enforcement based (emphasizing fraud detection and criminal deterrence), with public statements and interest across a diverse range of regulatory bodies, rather than unified rules. There are however inherent difficulties in regulating the cryptocurrency market, which will be discussed in detail in this paper.

Keywords: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Digital Currency, Blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technology

JEL Classification: G20